Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19971126100532.00942a60@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 10:05:32 -0500
To: "'W3C Style List'" <www-style@w3.org>, "'W3C HTML List'" <www-html@w3.org>
From: Liam Quinn <liam@htmlhelp.com>
In-Reply-To: <01bcfa65$083408c0$3c009696@kg9ae.dyn.ml.org>
Subject: Re: Header, Footer, and Sidebars
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
At 07:15 AM 26/11/97 -0500, David Norris wrote:
>Basically, my thought is to
>rid ourselves of frames in favor of a CSS property that does it without
>requiring a 'compatible' graphical user agent. Backward and forward
>compatibility is the key. Older agents ignore it and newer agents
enhance
>it.
This is exactly what Andrew's example [1] provides.
>It is perfectly feasible to have a
>block tag to position the text in a permanent location along one edge in
a
>graphical agent, though.
No, HTML is not a presentation language. However, you can use DIV to mark
a block as somehow different (as in Andrew's "footer", etc.), and then use
CSS2 to position that block in a permanent location along one edge in a
graphical agent. Again, that's what Andrew's example does.
>A user
>agent, in an environment where this would not work, could simply ignore
that
>docking info and render the page top to bottom. This page would be
>perfectly readable by any user agent, old or new.
Provided by Andrew's example. A user agent, in an environment where this
would not work, would ignore the docking info and render the page top to
bottom--currently header, then sidebar, then main, then footer. Perfect.
(Some may prefer the sidebar to be after main; this is a simple change.)
>The problem, currently, is that it requires careful use of CSS.
Visual authoring tools could make it easier.
>A less knowledgeable author could destroy
>a document's value by ignorantly misusing your example.
I can destroy any document's value with ignorance, even if it uses only
HTML 2.0 and no CSS.
[1] http://www.media-electronica.com/%7Eamarshal/Tests/divframes.html
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0
Charset: noconv
iQA/AwUBNHw6u/P8EtNrypTwEQK35wCfXpZxG0doK+3jVNToevXGqoKpZC0AoN4b
vzbAIipPeVWvfAFf5FpdoxKn
=ocWw
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
--
Liam Quinn
Web Design Group Enhanced Designs, Web Site Development
http://www.htmlhelp.com/http://enhanced-designs.com/